Recaps

Romanus reflected on whether Latins still identified as Romans, then visited a rose estate with Professor Karuk and saw how Adrian University’s agricultural expertise addressed its problems. As Romanus prepared to leave the university, Gennaro Gonnecchia gave him a document pouch to deliver to the Emperor.

• Romanus reread letters from the Di Maggio family and realized his relatives had called themselves Florentines, not Italians or Romans, leaving him troubled about Latin identity.
• Chiron suggested that Romanus travel with Professor Karuk to inspect a rose estate in Northern Thrace, and Romanus accepted.
• On April 16, Karuk identified poor drainage as a cause of the estate’s failing roses and directed students to map the land for drainage ditches.
• Karuk prescribed treatments for diseased plants, urged the owner to use thermometers, and arranged for villagers to dig ditches and install waterwheels.
• By late May, Romanus had finished auditing law courses and decided to return to his father to learn about military affairs.
• Gennaro Gonnecchia asked Romanus about Adrian University, then entrusted him with a document pouch for the Emperor.

Romanus returned to Dorylaeum six months later and heard about the army’s preparations for a major offensive against the Ottomans. In a discussion with Vitus, he learned why Italy could not be reclaimed through force and why the Empire should focus on regions where Greeks formed the majority.

• Romanus found Orlando training recruits for the reorganized Hermes Brigade, which had enlisted pardoned Moesian poachers to meet its manpower needs.
• Orlando told Romanus that the Ottomans had withdrawn from the border in May and that the army would resume its campaign after a period of rest.
• Romanus reunited with his family, handed Vitus suggestions for Adrian University, and discussed his legal studies with him.
• Romanus asked Vitus about the identity of Italian scholars, and Vitus explained that Italians no longer identified with the Eastern Roman Empire.
• Vitus warned Romanus against trying to reconquer Italy and cited Manuel I Komnenos’s failed campaigns and conflict with Venice as cautionary examples.

Vitus discussed the Greek people’s identity and the impossibility of restoring a universal Roman Empire, then continued to insist on war against the Ottomans despite their peace offer. The chapter left him expecting a decisive battle against a large enemy force while John pursued diplomacy with other states and Venice.

• Vitus explained to Romanus how Greek identity had grown distinct from Roman and Western Latin identities, and Romanus recalled Plethon’s teachings and reform proposals.
• Vitus searched for Plethon’s letters, found them with Pelato’s help, and showed Romanus a passage affirming the Greeks’ identity and ancestral culture.
• Vitus argued that emerging national identities across Europe made a universal Mediterranean empire impossible.
• During June, Vitus remained on vacation in Dorylaeum while John sought allies and pursued diplomacy over Venice.
• Vitus rejected Bayezid II’s offer of tribute for peace and dismissed the threat of three hundred thousand cavalrymen, estimating the enemy could field about eighty thousand soldiers for a decisive battle.

Vitus led a nearly seventy-thousand-strong Eastern Roman army from Dorylaeum toward Konya, choosing a safer eastern route across the plain. After discovering that Konya had only a small garrison while Ottoman reinforcements gathered elsewhere, he began besieging the city to establish a base for his planned attack on Cilicia.

• Vitus planned the campaign while Georgia prepared to pressure the Black Sheep Dynasty and the Mamluks' internal unrest eased the danger on the Ottoman southern front.
• On July 20, Vitus led the Eastern Roman army southeast from Dorylaeum, recalling Manuel I's failed campaign against Konya as he considered the route ahead.
• At Lake Eber, Vitus rejected the rugged western route through Myriokephalon and chose to enter the Konya Plain from the east.
• On August 2, Vitus's army entered the Konya Plain without facing an ambush or the expected enemy host.
• Vitus learned from captured soldiers that Konya held only a few thousand defenders while the Ottoman main force assembled in the rear, but reports about Black Sheep and White Sheep reinforcements conflicted.
• Vitus ordered the army to besiege Konya so he could use the city as a logistical base for the attack on Cilicia.

Vitus confirmed that the Ottoman army remained in Cilicia and sent mountain infantry to secure routes through the Taurus Mountains southwest of Konya. Boranov’s cavalry discovered pink salt lakes and abandoned saltworks, while Orlando’s troops captured a summer palace and advanced through mountain garrisons.

• Boranov and his dragoons found a vast pink salt lake, an abandoned Ottoman saltworks, and a flock of flamingos, then marked the lake, streams, and saltworks on their map.
• Vitus learned that the Ottoman army was still resting in Cilicia and ordered mountain infantry to attack the Taurus Mountains southwest of Konya.
• The Hermes Brigade stormed the Sultanate of Rum’s summer palace near Beyşehir Lake, killed more than a hundred defenders, and found that its treasures had been sold off earlier.
• Orlando regrouped his troops and began advancing along a mountain trade road, capturing Ottoman garrisons at caravan stations.
• After finding six-pound cannons ineffective against sturdy mountain forts, Orlando decided to request lighter mortars as standard artillery for mountain battalions.

Orlando delivered an imperial edict to Antalya and returned to Konya with Pamphylian militia, while Vitus captured the city after breaching its walls. With Konya surrendered, Vitus weighed two routes into Cilicia and planned how to trap Ottoman forces and seize the interior.

• Orlando reached Antalya, where the governor raised thirty-two hundred militia and asked whether more reinforcements were needed.
• Orlando returned to Konya with the militia and found Vitus’s army still besieging the city.
• Vitus dismissed the militia as unsuitable for combat, then resumed dictating an edict as a black-powder blast opened a breach in Konya’s wall.
• Palaiologos troops stormed the breach, and the remaining defenders surrendered by two in the afternoon.
• Vitus ordered the surrendered soldiers sent to Moesia and considered two routes into Cilicia, planning to confine Ottoman forces to the coastal plain.

Ottoman and White Sheep forces prepared to challenge Vitus’s army for control of the Konya Plain as reinforcements arrived and Venice supplied the Ottomans with weapons. Boranov’s cavalry company reached a quiet village to support friendly troops, where he urged them to strengthen their defenses despite the local commander’s reluctance.

• Uzun Hasan blamed the Black Sheep Sultan for arriving late to the war, while a messenger reported that the Black Sheep cavalry would reach the front in two days and its infantry in a week.
• Çandarlı Halil accepted Uzun Hasan’s plan to camp the main force in Aksaray and raid enemy supply routes if Vitus’s army attacked.
• Venice supplied the Ottoman Empire with twenty thousand muskets and one hundred and fifty cannons, while Uzun Hasan planned to build a firearms force for the White Sheep Dynasty after the war.
• Vitus’s army and the Ottoman-led alliance sent cavalry to contest the Konya Plain as dragoons moved to seize villages and strongpoints.
• Boranov led more than seventy cavalrymen to a village, where he found friendly troops resting without signs of battle.
• Boranov proposed digging trenches and building barricades, but the friendly company commander argued that the work was unnecessary and might be wasted if they had to march the next day.

Vitus prepared to face the Ottoman army by harvesting grain and marching to reinforce Damien at Oburji. After Damien reported destroying the ambushers, Vitus noticed the enemy had allowed his main force to advance without serious interference and suspected a deliberate trap.

• Boranov handed a village over to infantry and led his troops toward an estate to the east.
• Vitus refused to split his forces to defend the northern route and ordered his army to harvest wheat before attacking.
• Vitus learned that Damien planned to strike the ambushers near him, and he sent a coded battle plan while marching with most of his troops toward the front.
• Damien reported that his force had crushed four thousand Black Sheep Dynasty ambushers and was heading to Oburji, where nomad cavalry threatened to cut him off.
• Vitus reviewed reports showing little enemy harassment and wondered whether Uzun Hasan had deliberately let the Roman main force advance.

Vitus recognized that Uzun Hasan had prepared an ambush for the Eastern Roman army and organized his forces to meet it. The Romans broke through the allied troops’ positions on the hills, while Uzun Hasan’s forces fled deeper into the hills.

• Vitus suspected Uzun Hasan was waiting to ambush the Roman main force and told the Dragon Cavalry Brigade not to reconnoiter the likely ambush sites.
• Uzun Hasan led twenty-five thousand soldiers to the hills, where allied forces planned to surround the Romans and kill Vitus.
• When the Roman army halted and deployed short of the hills, Uzun Hasan ordered an attack, but the nomad cavalry would not charge the pike squares.
• Vitus sent Marcus to lead a frontal advance, and Roman artillery bombarded the fifteen thousand infantry on the slope.
• Uzun Hasan ordered an orderly retreat, but Black Sheep and Ottoman infantry panicked as the Romans advanced.
• Roman pikemen charged the White Sheep line, routing its surviving soldiers and sending the other allied troops fleeing into the hills.

Marcus routed the enemy infantry, while Vitus’s forces drove off the nomad cavalry in the south as the Ottoman army faced the Greek main force in a fierce artillery exchange. When the Black Sheep army arrived and attacked the reorganizing Greeks, Vitus sent Varangian infantry and five thousand cavalry against its command banner, with Thomas joining the assault.

• Marcus recalled his phalanx infantry to the mountaintop and learned that more than thirty thousand Ottoman soldiers had reached the battlefield.
• Çandarlı exchanged artillery fire with Vitus’s army while Vitus ordered cavalry, mountain infantry, and phalanx infantry to rout the nomad riders in the south.
• Vitus gathered his troops after the nomad cavalry fled, then saw nearly ten thousand Black Sheep soldiers arrive from the southwest.
• The Black Sheep commander sent six thousand nomad riders to attack the Greek cavalry, throwing the southern battlefield into chaos again.
• Vitus dispatched five Varangian infantry battalions and five thousand cavalry to strike the Black Sheep army’s central command banner, and Thomas volunteered to lead cavalry into battle.

Thomas and the Greek heavy cavalry broke through the Black Sheep army, while Çandarlı’s Ottoman forces were forced to retreat under a Greek advance. Çandarlı ordered the Janissaries to defend the valley as the Greek army began bombarding their positions.

• Thomas charged through the Black Sheep cavalry, then attacked and routed their musketeers alongside the Greek heavy cavalry.
• The Greek cavalry withdrew to the wagon fort after the Black Sheep central army collapsed, leaving the Ottoman cavalry to face Greek light cavalry and infantry.
• Çandarlı tried to stop the Greek advance with Camel Guns, but Greek Three-Pounders scattered the camels, and Greek troops continued pressing the Ottoman line.
• Çandarlı retreated into the valley and ordered the three thousand surviving Janissaries to hold the camp and delay the enemy.
• The Janissaries established two defensive lines, and Vitus ordered the field artillery to bombard them while advising Romanus on the use of elite troops.

Vitus’s army regrouped after its costly victory, then advanced through Anatolia while Ottoman remnants fortified the routes into Cilicia. In mid-October, Vitus reached Kayseri and prepared to discuss its siege.

• Vitus joined Damien’s troops at Oburji, reviewed the battle report, and learned that the army had lost four thousand cavalry while inflicting nearly twenty thousand enemy casualties.
• Vitus advanced on Ereğli, but abandoned the push through the Cilician Gates after finding the gorge too difficult to cross.
• After learning that Ottoman forces had withdrawn toward Mut, Vitus ordered fortified camps built to block both routes into Cilicia and shifted the army’s focus to inland regions.
• Vitus’s forces liberated Aksaray and marched east toward Kayseri, the capital of Cappadocia.
• Vitus inspected Kayseri’s repaired walls and summoned his commanders to plan the siege.

Vitus captured Kayseri after rejecting the garrison’s demands and refused to let Anatolia’s old lords retain their lands and authority. As his army advanced north, an Eastern Roman warship seized a Venetian arms transport bound for the Ottomans.

• Vitus rejected the Kayseri garrison’s surrender terms, then offered the soldiers a chance to surrender with their belongings and limited compensation.
• Most of the garrison surrendered, and the Eastern Roman army took control of Kayseri.
• Vitus ordered the Varangian Legion, the Sakarya Legion, and auxiliary troops across the Harris River to recover Cappadocia, while refusing Ottoman envoys and beys who sought favorable surrender terms.
• The Ephesus pursued a suspicious Genoa-flagged merchant ship and captured it near the Cilician coast.
• The Ephesus’s crew discovered the ship was a Venetian arms transport for the Ottomans and towed it to Cyprus.

Vitus prepared the Eastern Roman army for winter while Hunyadi’s forces advanced against the Teutonic Knights and captured a fortress after a prolonged assault. Hunyadi rode ahead toward Kwidzyn, but its wary militia refused to open the gates.

• Vitus ordered fifteen thousand soldiers recruited and trained for next year’s campaign as the Eastern Roman army wintered in Anatolia.
• Hunyadi scouted the Prussian wilderness and observed Wladyslaw III’s banquet with representatives of the Prussian League.
• Polish artillery battered a Teutonic fortress, and the army eventually captured its high castle after Hunyadi proposed using smoke to force the defenders out.
• Hunyadi gained Wladyslaw III’s permission to lead light cavalry toward Kwidzyn, where the militia refused to open the gates.

Hunyadi postponed the assault on Marienburg and helped negotiate a preliminary trade agreement with Gdansk while promoting Dobšiná muskets. In Constantinople, public anger toward Venice grew after its ultimatum demanded the release of captured ships and sailors and an end to interference with Venetian trade.

• Hunyadi inspected a large brickworks and concluded that the Order’s extensive castle-building capacity could prolong the war.
• Hunyadi advised Władysław to delay attacking Marienburg until spring, gather more troops and artillery, and expand the river fleet to blockade the fortress.
• Gdansk’s merchant guild negotiated with Władysław’s court, and Hunyadi gave its representatives twenty Dobšiná muskets as samples.
• In Constantinople, Eli saw that citizens’ attention had shifted from the front to calls for war against Venice.
• A Venetian-released sailor told the crowd that Venice demanded the Palaiologos family return captured ships and sailors and stop obstructing Venetian trade.

Vitus received word that John VIII had fallen ill and ceded control to the Imperial Council amid unrest in Constantinople, but he refused to abandon the campaign to recover Cilicia. As provincial leaders pledged support, Vitus prepared for possible intervention by Venice and the Balkan states while continuing to expand his military forces.

• Pelato delivered Helena Dragaš's letter and John VIII's edict, explaining that unrest over the Venetian capture of a merchant ship had caused John to fall ill and plan to retire to a monastery.
• Vitus decided to continue the war and recover Cilicia before addressing the crisis in Constantinople, while ordering provinces to keep sending provisions and recruits.
• Vitus counted his personal savings and received pledges of supplies, taxes, and soldiers from northern Black Sea leaders and several provinces.
• Romanus asked whether the family or an army should return to Dorylaeum, while Vitus struggled to manage anxious officials and a flood of letters.
• Vitus ordered warnings sent to the Balkan and Italian states, began forming the Konya Legion, and directed the Trebizond Shipyard and Dardanelles garrison to prepare against the Venetian fleet.

Vitus led the Eastern Roman field army east from Kayseri to isolate the Ottoman forces in Cilicia, while Bayezid II learned that Vitus would not be distracted by Constantinople’s turmoil. After the Venetian envoy urged continued resistance, Çandarlı called on the sultan to retreat before the Roman army arrived.

• Vitus chose to march east from Kayseri and block the roads into and out of Cilicia rather than attack the fortified Cilician Gates.
• On March 2, Vitus’s field army left Kayseri and advanced through villages whose residents offered little resistance after years of heavy Ottoman taxes.
• Romanus and Thomas entered a small town discussing how to cook the wild sheep the Roman cavalry had hunted.
• A messenger told Bayezid II that Vitus had assembled at Kayseri and was advancing east, shattering the sultan’s hope that Constantinople’s turmoil would delay him.
• Bayezid II asked the Venetian envoy whether Venice, Hungary, and Serbia would attack Constantinople, but the envoy could offer no immediate support.
• After the envoy urged the Ottomans to keep resisting, Çandarlı advised Bayezid II to retreat before it was too late.

Bayezid II retreated with the remnants of the Ottoman army toward Syria, while Eastern Roman cavalry raids weakened and delayed his column. After the Ottomans secured White Sheep cavalry aid and escaped into the Syrian interior, Vitus entered Cilicia and considered it a promising place for a new capital.

• Bayezid II led the Ottoman retreat out of Cilicia, but undisciplined troops looted fields and deserted as enemy cavalry raids spread panic.
• On March 20, Yaropolk led five thousand Eastern Roman cavalrymen against the Ottoman baggage train, disabling fifty cannons and burning supplies before Ottoman reinforcements drove them off.
• Bayezid II accepted a proposal to trade matchlocks for White Sheep cavalry support to protect the retreat.
• Eight days later, Vitus learned the Ottomans had reached the Syrian interior with White Sheep reinforcements and chose not to pursue them.
• Vitus led his main force into Cilicia and assessed its crops, sweetgum forests, and climate as suitable for establishing a capital.

Vitus captured Adana after rejecting the defenders’ proposed surrender terms, while Romanus observed the new administration’s hard line toward local elites. Andronikos warned Vitus that unrest in Constantinople and Venetian naval activity threatened the empire, but Vitus refused to abandon the ongoing war.

• Vitus besieged Adana, rejected the defenders’ request for Kayseri’s terms, and accepted the surrender of its two thousand soldiers at noon.
• Vitus assigned Carlo to receive Adana’s leading figures, who were given copies of the empire’s laws and sent away.
• Romanus, disguised as a palace guard, observed the meeting and considered the difficulties of finding qualified local officials.
• Andronikos arrived in Adana on April 20, explored the city, and then met with Thomas and Romanus before visiting Vitus.
• Andronikos urged Vitus to return to Constantinople because of political disorder and the threat of conflict with Venice, but Vitus refused to stop the war.

Vitus led the Eastern Roman army into Antioch, where he saw how war and changing geography had reduced the once-great city to a small settlement. After securing the city, he inspected the Orontes delta and ordered its rice paddies given to tenant farmers, who could pay their taxes in rice.

• Vitus marched forty thousand soldiers from Alexandretta through the Syrian Gates and south along the Orontes River.
• Vitus’s army entered Antioch, where Andronikos knelt to pray and Thomas estimated that only about five thousand people remained.
• Vitus took control of Antioch and rode downriver with two cavalry battalions to inspect the wet farmland at the Orontes mouth.
• Vitus ordered the rice paddies given to tenant farmers and allowed them to pay their taxes in rice.

Vitus captured Aintab and organized new border districts to secure the Eastern Roman Empire’s southeastern frontier. With Antioch and Aintab retaken and the Ottoman sultan still missing, he decided to end the war and return to Constantinople.

• Vitus chose an abandoned harbor near Antioch, divided his forces between repairing the city and probing inland, and refused Andronikos’s request for money to restore churches.
• After reviewing battle reports, Vitus decided to retake Aintab and led thirty thousand soldiers out of Antioch on May 6.
• Vitus reached Aintab on May 13, and the Eastern Roman army captured the city within two days.
• Vitus learned that the Ottoman sultan had fled east and that the remaining Ottoman troops had joined the Mamluks in the southern Levant.
• Vitus established the Cappadocia border district under Marcus and the Antioch–Aintab border district under Damien, then planned to return to Constantinople.

Vitus established sixty-two garrison districts, planned a reliable warhorse supply, and inspected the new Konya Legion before continuing toward Nicomedia. The chapter ended as the emperor’s approaching army came into view outside the city.

• Vitus assigned a larger share of hereditary officer posts to cavalrymen and ordered records of wartime service to be compiled.
• Vitus planned to use Cappadocian pastures and private operators to supply warhorses for the army.
• Vitus traveled through the Cilician Gates and returned to Konya on June 10 to inspect the Sixth Legion.
• Vitus left Romanus in Konya with the Sixth Legion and two auxiliary cavalry brigades as reserves for the eastern defensive line.
• Vitus reached the outskirts of Nicomedia on July 1, where Boranov took charge of the south-gate defenses.
• A purple banner appeared on the horizon, and the provincial governor hurried to ready the waiting crowd for Vitus’s arrival.

Vitus returned to Constantinople with his army after learning that the homeland had remained politically stable and Venice had not dared to invade. He arrived by sea to a grand welcome and asked where John VIII was.

• Vitus led his twenty-three thousand troops to spend the night in a city before boarding ships for Constantinople.
• On the journey, Vitus heard that Demetrius had quarreled with the empress dowager and that Venice had gathered mercenaries on Crete but made no move to invade.
• Thomas boarded the ship ahead of Vitus, eager to reunite with his wife and daughter Zoe.
• Vitus rejected a lavishly decorated flagship and sailed west aboard an ordinary warship.
• The fleet reached Constantinople and received cheers and horn blasts as it passed the sea walls and entered the Golden Horn.
• Vitus met the empress dowager, Thomas, Maria Komnenos, and the Patriarch at the dock, then asked where John VIII was.

Vitus met John VIII at Hagia Sophia after John renounced responsibility for the empire and its troubles. Vitus outlined his long-term plan to weaken Venice, ordered those involved in the January unrest to be punished according to law, and stood silent as officials waited for a speech.

• Vitus led a procession to Hagia Sophia and found John VIII praying in the cathedral nave.
• Vitus told John about recapturing Antioch, and John reflected on the unrest, the merchants who had left, and the hatred he faced over the church union.
• Vitus explained that he planned to seize Euboea and the Ionian Islands and disrupt Venetian trade, though he expected the war to last years.
• Vitus asked Patriarch Metrophanes II how the January unrest participants should be dealt with, then ordered him to follow the Basilika.
• Thomas congratulated Vitus on inheriting the empire, and Vitus insisted he had won most of it himself.
• Vitus remained silent in Augustus Forum while officials waited for him to address the assembled crowd.

Vitus reviewed the empire’s finances and military readiness before holding his first Imperial Council meeting, where he established plans for governing the recovered provinces. The meeting ended with appointments and provincial priorities set, while Vitus considered how control of Cilicia could expand the empire’s trade influence.

• Vitus reviewed the accounts and learned that the empire faced a 1.6-million-Florin debt, while its forces were stretched across the eastern front and its navy could not secure the Eastern Mediterranean.
• Vitus ordered an annual civil service examination in Constantinople and said he would preside over the 1444 examination.
• Vitus told the patriarch that the Patriarchate of Antioch would govern nearby territories but not Cilicia or Cappadocia, easing the patriarch’s concerns.
• Vitus and the Imperial Council settled senior provincial appointments and plans for Konya, Cappadocia, and Cilicia.
• Vitus considered the trade routes through the recovered territories, noted that taking Egypt could give the empire control over most eastern goods reaching Europe, and left the meeting.